Black Holes and Revelations
by Xx starlight-moon xX
Summary: A collection of unrelated or loosely inter-related oneshots about Azkaban, each from the POV of a different character in the Potterverse. I take requests, just be prepared to be a little patient, my inspiration is an unreliable thing sometimes . . .
1. Sirius Black

**A / N : I'm not sure why sure why I'm posting these. They began as a little thought that wouldn't leave me alone - namely, I wonder what it would be like to get inside the minds of everyone in Azkaban? Azkaban drives most of its inhabitants mad eventually, but everyone is different, and so, surely, everyone goes mad differently too. The idea interested me, so I decided to explore it in a little more detail, and combine it with an experiment. It's quite simple - I pick a character and give myself ten minutes to write Azkaban from their POV. Because of the time constraints they're all very short, and not my best writing, in my opinion. But they're interesting. I'm happy to take requests, the only rule being that the character has to have actually set foot in Azkaban in canon, because this isn't an AU. Other than that, feel free to request any canon character you like! **

**If you do read, please leave a review to let me know what you thought. It would mean a lot to me. **

**The title is a lyric from the Muse song "Starlight", which I don't own. Nor do I own Harry Potter. (If only!) **

**Oh, and obviously, I'm cranking the angst up to the maximum here. A group of people are loosing their minds, the angst factor is almot unavoidable. Enjoy! **

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**Sirius Black **

He's not mad.

Not like the rest of them.

Not like her.

He watches them bring Bellatrix in, a year after he himself has been thrown into a cell without so much as a trial. (The injustice still rankles. Then again, a great many injustices are currently rankling with Sirius. First and foremost, of course, is the unassailable fact that Lily and James are _dead, _and Harry is who knows where. This is an injustice that far outstrips everything else, even the knowledge that everyone he once considered a friend has turned their back on him, and – worse, if that were possible – the whole world thinks he betrayed Lily and James. His best friend, and Lily. Harry's _parents, _for crying out loud. )

He wrenches his thoughts back to the present with an effort, because he doesn't want to miss seeing Bellatrix. Days blur together in Azkaban, an avalanche of misery, and anything that breaks the cycle is to be welcomed. Even if it means laying eyes on someone he hates, someone who is as guilty, in his book, as Peter. Worse. Peter, he knows, would have been weak. He would have caved under pressure, would have craved the protection of someone stronger. But Bellatrix . . . . she didn't need protection, or so she would have the world believe. She was a force to be reckoned with, all on her own, and why she had felt willing to humble herself and be anyone's slave was always something of a mystery to Sirius. He contented himself with the knowledge that his cousin was completely insane and her reasons for doing _anything _probably lacked, well, _reason. _

He expects her to be fighting.

She has always been arrogant, and vain. So it shocks him when they drag her through the gates and down the hall. Quite literally drag her. A Dementor has a scabbed and bony hand clamped around each upper arm. Bellatrix seems scarcely conscious, her eyelids flickering in the gloom, and her feet drag along the floor, boots scuffing on the flagstones. She is murmering something, he realizes as she passes his cell. Over and over again, a mantra, a feverish-sounding sort of prayer.

The word "master."

Suddenly repulsed, he flings himself against the opposite wall, tearing his eyes away from her. Hatred is coursing through his veins, thick and heady as the half-remembered taste of mulled mead. He's glad Bellatrix can't seem to tolerate the Dementors. He's glad they make her weak. He doesn't care if they kill her.

She deserves it.

There is so much evil in the world, but if he can just see one tiny piece of it - _her – _conquered . . . . well. He might not feel so helpless. He might actually recall the meaning of the word "hope".

He waits, wondering how long she will last before she begins to scream. He predicts she'll crack at sunset. He did.

He watches the weak, watery sunlight drain away, and almost as if on cue . . . . she begins to scream. Sirius smirks, just a little. He still knows his family much too well. It's not a happy thought, so the Dementors can't drag it out of him. But it's something that reminds him of who he was – of who he _is. _

Bellatrix's screams he can take, although any pleasure he derives from the sound is swiftly extinguished by the depressing realization that he will probably spend the rest of his life rotting in here, listening to that sound.

_And that's enough to drive anyone mad. _


	2. Bellatrix Lestrange

**A / N : Bellatrix, as requested by Expecting Rain. **

**Bellatrix and Rodolphus aren't sharing a cell because, well, frankly I never heard of any prison that allowed maximum security prisoners to share a cell, just because they were married. Bellatrix is a hell of lot less sane than I usually write her here, but that's not so unexpected. Let me know what you think of it. Love, hate, not sure, etc. Enjoy! **

**(Is it a little sadistic that I offer up each of these with the word 'enjoy'? Possibly . . . . )**

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**Bellatrix Lestrange **

Bella never suffered a punishment she didn't whole-heartedly deserve.

Well. Maybe one.

Just one.

But every other punishment – every torturing she ever recieved, every fine nuance of agony – she earned them all. With ill-considered actions, with weaknesses she ought to have been able to control, and with folly. It was folly, was it not? To persist in trying to express a truth that cut like glass? To love, when she ought to have been happy merely to serve?

Folly . . . . was it her word? Or his? She couldn't quite recall. But it was a word that spoke of hurt, of foolish infatuations and delusions, of failure . . . . . .

Oh, what did it matter, in the end? The word had probably been his. All the words she clung to now were his.

Little by little, she let everything else go. She had to, because she was dying. She could feel it. So she did what she had to do. She sacrified the last broken pieces of her sanity, to keep herself alive.

It seemed a fair trade.

What had sanity ever done for her, anyway?

The air was cold, so cold . . . . icy cold, corpse-like cold . . . and her heart was freezing too, though it would never be cold enough. Not for him.

Love. Such a cruel and mocking thing, an agony worse than all the torture in the world. They had been so angry, at her torture of the Longbottoms, but really, couldn't they see she'd been _merciful? _Torture? If they knew how tortured she'd been, they'd laugh at themselves. Laugh and laugh. Because it was so sad it was _funny. _

It is a weakness, to scream. To cry out in pain at a well-deserved punishment. But wherever her master is, he isn't here. And he can't hear her. Wouldn't he come, if he could hear her? Wouldn't he reward her, for her loyalty, her _faith . . . . _

Faith . . . . . The word is too close to that other, unspeakable truth, so she screams to drown it out, that never-spoken painful hurting truth.

Bella screams and screams, and claws and hits, until her throat is bloody and her skin is ribboned in red, patterned in purple. Pretty words, ribbons and patterns. They remind her of someone she can't see clearly, someone small and sweet and really far too innocent, with fair hair.

She screams, because pain is something else, something real, and it speaks to her of past hurt, of a life etched in it, in fact, and that reassures her. If it can hurt this much, if she can feel it so sharply . . . . it must have been real.

It was real.

And if it was real, then he was real.

And if he was real . . . .

"He'll come for me." She hugs herself, rocking back and forth, childlike. "He's coming for me."

And then she laughs, because when he comes for her . . . . now _that _will funny. So funny it hurts.

_And oh, how it will hurt . . . . _

Alone in her cell, Bellatrix's laughter bounces off the walls, wild, manic laughter. And it chills anyone who hears it to the core.


	3. Rodolphus Lestrange

**A / N : Rodolphus, as requested by xoxLewrahxox and Expecting Rain. His is deliberately, er, sparse. It's supposed to show how completely he's shut down. Still, it's officially the shortest thing I've ever posted, so sorry about that. I'll post the Rabastan one with it as a peace offering. :)**

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**Rodolphus Lestrange **

He shivers, alone in his cell. Icy fingers grip his heart, and he cannot feel the sun, not even the weak, watered-down version that passes for sunlight here, filtered through fog and iron bars.

Bella . . . ..

The Dark Lord . . . .

His whole life, really . . . . .

He shivers again.

_A living hell._


	4. Rabastan Lestrange

**A / N : Rabastan, as promised. Regarding the appraoch I chose with him . . . . it's probably unusual, but hey, there's no canon evidence one way or the other. Let me know what you think, as always! **

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**Rabastan Lestrange **

He isn't suffering as much as the others. He knows this. There are horrors – tortures – in their pasts that he has never known, has never allowed himself to know.

The torture that makes Bellatrix scream.

The one that makes Rodolphus silent.

_That_ torture Rabastan has never allowed himself to feel. He is safer that way, or so he always told himself. Never love, and love can never hurt you. The places Rabastan could love would only get him into trouble anyway. People talk, after all.

So he has never allowed himself to love another, and oh how clever he thought himself. Oh, how _safe. _

But the result is that he is empty.

Empty.

Hollow.

And in the empty cavity of his chest, mocking echoes sound. Places he could have gone, men he could have loved, if he had allowed himself to.

But he didn't.

A life of didn't and couldn't and wouldn't, and he wonders at how a life so filled with _nothing_ – with dreams quickly squashed and longings instantly suppressed – can hurt so much.

He isn't suffering as much as the others. He knows this. But the empty echoes that haunt him, that _taunt _him . . . they make him wish he was.


	5. Barty Crouch Jr

**A / N : Barty Crouch Jr, as requested by Rainey Dae. This one gave me the shivers . . . . **

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**Barty Crouch Jr **

He doesn't remember being a child. Not really. Or at least, he doesn't remember having childish thoughts. He's thought pretty much the same way his whole life.

He isn't scared, at first, by the idea of Azkaban. After all, he's been happily acquainted with the awareness of his own insanity for most of his life. He's never really minded it. Sane people, in his opinion, are boring. The ones that everyone else calls mad - his master, his mentor Bellatrix – they're the interesting ones. They're the ones who are really _alive. _

So he isn't scared of Azkaban. He's already mad. What more can the Dementors do?

In Azkaban, he learns what it is to be a child. Crying in the dark. Terrified of everything, and for the first time in his life, he can't stand to be alone. But alone is what he is, of course, all the time. Trapped in his own head, in a hell that encompasses just him. If he could only collect his thoughts, he could find a bleak sort of humour in the realization that Azkaban has driven him to a madness that is much, much worse than his old one. He wants the madness he knows, the one he's comfortable with.

But it won't come back.

_Not while the Dementors are here. _

There is a voice in his head, the voice of the child he doesn't remember being, and they shiver together, alone in the dark.

The child screams, at first, screams for his mother, something Barty hasn't done in years. But it's alright to scream for her -

_- because she never comes._

He's allowed to scream for mother. That's alright, because she won't come. But he can never, ever scream for father.

_Because he will come, _the voice says, small and scared. _And we don't want that._

"No. We don't want that."


	6. Mrs Crouch

**A / N : Mrs Crouch, as requested by Expecting Rain. Let me know what you think, as always . . . . **

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**Mrs Crouch**

The first truly beautiful thing she ever saw was her baby son's hand, small and sticky, the fingers splayed like a star against her own. It was a tiny, perfect thing, and it spoke to her of promise.

The last truly beautiful thing she sees, before she dies, is her son's hand, cold and clammy in the gloom. He is dying, her son, and deep deep down she suspects – more than _suspects – _that the things they say are true, that the things her husband says are true. That her son has commited murder, and acts far less swift and merciful. But he is dying, now. Isn't that punishment enough? She knows it isn't really, knows that for anyone else it would _not_ be punishment enough. But he is her son, her only child, and she cannot help but feel that whatever he did, she had a hand in it. The blame cannot be entirely his. Somewhere along the way, she failed. She let him down, and contributed to this somehow (though even now, she can't quite see _how). _So it is only right that she share the punishment, if she shares the blame.

He is dying, shivering and scarcely conscious. He gives no indication he can hear her when she summons all her strength and speaks to him, though it is so cold it hurts to even open her mouth. Perhaps that is why he doesn't say anything back. He is too cold, or too tired. Perhaps.

She watches him tense, watches him struggle as her husband forces the potion down his throat, and for a moment she wonders if she is doing the right thing, saving him to leave him at his father's mercy. But she believes she is. She has to believe she is. She has to believe that somewhere, deep down, her husband loves their son too, and that somewhere, deep down, her son has the capacity to change.

She watches her husband's hands pin her son down, his knuckles white and his fingers rigid upon Barty's neck, his chest. She watches her son struggle against him, and she is almost knocked to the ground when he calls her name. He hasn't done that in so long.

She doesn't know why he stopped.

"Shh . . . shh, darling. I'm here. I came."

Lost in delerium, fading away – his eyelids flicker, eyes rolling beneath them, and he sweats and shakes . . . .

And then he puts out his hand, finds hers, and holds on tight, as though he is falling, and she can save him.

She can save him.

The last truly beautiful thing she will ever see is her son's hand, reaching for hers. It sings to her of hope.


	7. Lucius Malfoy

**A / N : Lillith - hey! Thanks for reviewing, it really made me smile. And Bellatrix is one of my fave characters too, so we have that in common. :)**

**Now - Lucius Malfoy, as requested by, well, pretty much everyone. Haha. Enjoy!**

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**Lucius Malfoy**

In Azkaban, he dreams in colour.

For the first time in his life, when he awakens he recalls this one fact about the world of sleep, which has always evaded him before.

He dreams in vivid colour.

In red.

He sees blood. A child's footprint, stamped in it.

His wife's lips, glistening bloody scarlet as she coughs, and the fault is his – he dragged her into this, did he not?

Selfish, was he not?

He sees his son, a mess of misplaced pride and dangerous ambition, and realizes he is too like his father for his own good.

He sees his son, a terrified child not cold enough to please the Dark Lord, and realizes he is too like his mother for his own good. Is there no way to win?

Apparently not.

Even if there were, what could Lucius do? He is here, is he not? Trapped in a hell of his own making. And Narcissa and Draco are _there . . . . . _trapped, too, in a hell of his making.

If they are all to be trapped, he thinks, watching his breath coil into icy mist before his eyes, could they not be trapped together? Could they not freeze together? Narcissa would freeze with him, he knows. Would Draco? It's difficult to say. But he might freeze with his mother, and if Draco were to stay with his _mother_, and Narcissa were to stay with her _husband_ . . . . well, then they might all end up together. And he has the feeling he could fix it all, if he could just bring his family together again. A vain hope, perhaps, but a hope nonetheless.

A hope that is dragged out of him with every breath, and leaves him gasping and stranded in a fortress that is as impenetrable as before. Worse than before, in fact.

Before, Lucius was not there. He evaded imprisonment, in the first war. He lied, for his wife and his son, for the life he didn't want to lose. He didn't want to forfeit all he had left for a master who was long lost himself. But then, it was only charms and monsters, bricks and mortar and the surging sea. That was all that made Azkaban impenetrable, then. Now, escape depends upon the mercy of his master, and _that, _Lucius knows, is much worse. Somehow, he'd rather have the bricks and mortar and Dementors, would rather swim all the way back to land, through the freezing sea, than rely upon the mercy of his master.

But it's not his choice to make.

And so Lucius stays locked in a cell, dreaming in scarlet.

And somewhere a child is crying out for a parent who will not come, a saviour, who, really, was the one to damn them all in the first place.


	8. Antonin Dolohov

**Antonin Dolohov**

He's been here before, so he knows how to survive.

How long was he here for, then? A year? Two? He doesn't remember. It was when he was young and foolish, before his master had truly risen to power. An accident sent him here, a feud when he was young and headstrong and had yet to learn caution. He attacked another man, cursed him. Not with an Unforgivable, but still viciously enough to warrant a year in Azkaban.

A year, they said, but Antonin knows better. It wasn't a year. It was an eternity, burning in hell. Time is inconsequential, in Azkaban, a place where cold burns like fire and happy memories pierce his heart like knives, like evil, loathesome things. Time, indeed, is inconsequential. The trick is to realize that. To let go of all you know and knew, temporarily. Don't discard the information, because one day you'll need it again. But put it somewhere safe, somewhere out of reach, and tell yourself you've forgotten.

Pretty smiles and female wiles.

Taking pride and when to hide.

He forgets these things.

He doesn't know them.

Not anymore.

All he knows is time, and time is tricky here. Twenty four hour units were devised by someone who has never known this, so he learns new ways to measure time.

The time between falling to a tortured sleep and waking to a tortured reality. That's a unit.

The time between someone else's spine-chilling screams, and the silence that makes him feel the whole world is dead and dying, with life a long-forgotten echo . . . . . a unit.

The time between blacking out and losing sight, between nightmares and hallucinations . . .. another unit.

The time between his master's fall and the day the walls come crashing down . . . . .

Immeasurable units.


	9. Augustus Rookwood

**Augustus Rookwood**

The world is full of secrets, and Augustus has always been entranced by them. Secrets, and lies . . . .

What is a lie, really, but a secret by another name? What is evil, really, but power by another name?

So many secret things, in the world, and Augustus had wanted to know all of them. Had wanted to overturn every stone and dissect the worms beneath, to find the meaning behind every smirk and the story behind every smile.

He made a career out of it, in the end. Exploring hidden truths and hallowed secrets, deep in the Department of Mysteries.

And then he met him.

The Dark Lord.

And the Dark Lord showed him different secrets, things he could never have imagined.

The places a mind can go, when pain is applied just so, here and here and _here, _and the things a person can do, when you sweep aside the boundaries society has set, when you threaten to twist and torture the things that have been decreed untouchable. Lovers. Children. The sanctuary of the mind.

So many secrets. He has seen people driven to madness, has been fascinated by the single sublime moment when they lose their sanity. He has seen agony beyond all description, when parents, under the Imperius Curse, murder their own children. Oh, the things the Dark Lord has shown him.

And all he asked for was a few secrets in return.


	10. Mundungus Fletcher

**A / N : I'm not actually sure if Mundungus was ever really in Azkaban. (Fill me in on that, if anyone remembers what I don't!) But I'm guessing that over the course of a long and varied life, he fell foul of the law at one stage or another and had to serve a little time behind bars. It seems a reasonable assumption, given his record of less-than-legal activity. This particular incident is set sometime during the first war. **

**Mostly, I just wrote this one because it buried into my skull, having been requested so nicely by Rainey Dae. And once Mundungus' "voice" had found its way into my head, it wouldn't leave until I'd written it down. Some lightness is surely in order anyway, given how angsty most of this fic is. Enjoy! **

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**Mundungus Fletcher **

He isn't a bad person. "Bad" and "opportunistic" are not the same thing. Sure, he's no _angel – _he's the first to admit it – but he's a long way from evil. He just has sticky fingers, and finds it hard to resist any proposition that begins with the words - "'Ere, Dung, I don't _suppose _you'd like to do us a favour? For a piece of the pie, o'course . . . ."

No, Mundungus reflects, as he kicks back against the wall and crosses his legs, watching his breath mist in front of his eyes. He isn't a _bad _person. Not by a long shot. He just doubts anyone would mistake him for a particularly good one.

How did he end up here? A deal gone wrong, of course.

_Story of my life, really. _

A drop-off gone awry, and a dose of bad luck. A Muggle Liason officer who just happened to be loitering nearby, an impatient contact, and the next thing he knows, he's up in front of whichever members of the Wizengamot happen to be hanging around on the day, facing charges of petty theft and public endangerment. _Public endangerment, _he scoffs, _yeah right. Cauldron bottoms just a shade too thin for "official regulations". They're not going to kill anyone. _Somehow, the court remains immune to Dung's particular brand of sleazy charm, and deaf to his protests. Somehow, he finds himself saddled with a sentence of six months in the clink.

Still, things could be worse. He's only a low-security prisoner, so it's not solitary confinement the whole time, and he doesn't have Dementors outside his cell day and night. Not like those at the top. "The top" is low-security slang for the lifers locked away at the top of the fortress. He shivers at the thought of it, as he scratches another chalk line onto the makeshift calendar on the wall. Halfway done now. He'll be out in next to no time, he tells himself. Home free.

All he has to do is survive the next few months, and Mundungus is nothing if not pragmatic. He has a strategy for surviving hard times. A simple one, but it's always served him well.

He does what he's good at. He steals.

Oh, not actual items. Nothing like that. But there is a silver lining to every cloud, and in Dung's experience, there is always something worth stealing, no matter where you find yourself.

Dying of boredom, faced with nothing but the gloomiest memories of his life played on an endless loop. There must be something better than this, he decides.

So he takes to studying his fellow inmates. He steals their lives. Not the ones at the top. No – _their _stories are common knowledge, played out in gruesome detail on cold nights in the Hog's Head, and printed solemnly on the front page of the Prophet. Murder. Torture. Etc.

No fun in them. Hard tales for hard times.

But what about Archie, the prisoner across the way? He has a leathery, weather-beaten old face, sour and shifty-looking, and he must have an interesting tale to tell. Maybe – a crafty smile creeps across Dung's face – maybe Archie is in for experimental breeding. Maybe he mixed a manticore with a fire-crab and came up with something hideous.

And how about Gloria, the little witch with the darting yellow-brown eyes and the scraggy orange hair? She might look innocent, but it's possible she . . . . oh, let's think now. She might have been the jilted lover of a government minister, and might have threatened to send scandalous pictures to Witch Weekly. He sniggers. Yeah, that might be it. Or she might have distilled a new, hallucenogenic version of Butterbeer and used it to get all the kiddies at Hogwarts high.

_Yeah,_ Mundungus thinks, yawning. _That might be it._


	11. Goyle Sr

**A / N : Goyle Senior, the father of the Goyle in Draco's era. Written on a strange whim. Reviews?**

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**Goyle Sr. **

Everyone thinks they're stupid, him and Crabbe. And it's true. They _are. _

They aren't what they've always called "book-smart". They were terrible at Hogwarts. They scarcely scraped through their OWLs.

They're not clever with words, like Lucius Malfoy.

Not terrifyingly adept at curses, like Bellatrix.

Not smart enough to sense trouble brewing.

Not sharp enough to make snap decisions.

Not quick enough on the uptake to avoid their master's ire.

Not creepily devoted enough to placate him again, like Bellatrix, or that Crouch kid.

Not very good at keeping their mouths shut, or ducking when curses start flying, or talking their way out of trouble. Not much of anything, really.

No, Goyle thinks, huddled in a corner of his cell. They aren't anything, really, him and Crabbe.

Not much of anything. Not clever. Not smart. But that doesn't mean they hurt any differently to the people who are. It just means that no-one will ever know.

Because they will never have the words to express it.


	12. Crabbe Sr

**A / N : If you thought Goyle Sr was weird . . . . . . um, this one is even weirder. I honestly have no idea what inspired this. It began simply as a play on the common perception of Crabbe and Goyle as being, well, stupid. And somehow, it morphed into a stalkerish tale of unrequited romance. It's a little scary. The constant repetition of the word "stupid" is intentional but also very annoying, so sorry about that. There's also some language in this one, though hopefully nothing bad enough to bump my teen rating up. Let me know what you think, as always, and remember that just like Goyle before it, this one is about Crabbe Senior, the father of the Crabbe in Draco's era. Okay, read on, creep yourselves out, question my sanity . . . . etc. Let me know what you think. **

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**Crabbe Sr**

He hates it, here.

Actually, he hates it everywhere.

Hogwarts, that stupid school, where they all laughed at him for being stupid. He can see their faces now. Stupid kids.

Stupid home, with a stupid wife, who calls him stupid, and says he's passed all his stupidness on to their son.

Stupid son, who never does well at anything and just proves his stupid mother right.

Stupid Lucius Malfoy, who always has to be so smart, and always makes Crabbe feel so dumb, giving orders as if that's the way it ought to be, just because he was born smart and Crabbe was born stupid.

Stupid Bellatrix, with her crazy crush on the Dark Lord, running after him like a stupid little girl, doing anything he wants her to, as if that will make him love her. Even Crabbe, who she calls stupid ten times a week, knows that you can't make someone _love _you. You can make them listen to you, if you shout at them. You make them hurt, with a blow, with a curse. There are ways to make them sleep with you. But he has never heard of a way to make someone really love you, and he's fairly sure that's because it doesn't exist. Stupid Bellatrix. Every time she throws the word at him, he laughs a little, inside, because she's so stupid she won't ever wonder what he thinks about. She won't ever see the words he doesn't say. Stupid bitch. Stupid whore. Stupid pretty, crazy, stupid girl, who never paid him any attention, because he's too stupid for her to notice, and she's too stupid to care about anyone besides her precious master, and too stupid to see what everyone else can see – that he doesn't care about her. Maybe he doesn't even like her. Yeah. Maybe he doesn't even like her. Stupid Bellatrix.

Stupid Lestrange, losing his temper and going crazy at everyone else all the time because he was stupid enough to marry her.

Stupid Wormtail, not even a Death Eater, really, just a sneak and a traitor and a rat. That was what Bellatrix called him. A rat. She always calls him that. And everyone laughs. Everyone laughs when she wants them to, and when she doesn't want them to, they don't. It's like a new magic, all of her own.

Stupid Bellatrix, with her stupid magic ways and her stupid words and her stupid way of not paying attention to anyone who's too stupid for her to listen to.

Stupid wife, always calling him stupid too. Well, we'll see who's stupid, won't we, when her stupid head hits the wall.

Stupid Bellatrix, locked up in Azkaban for years, screaming her stupid, silent screams on the front of the Daily Prophet, so that they leap off the page and bury into his skull and at night all he can hear is stupid Bellatrix, and her stupid screams for someone who won't ever love her back. Because she'll always be just a little bit too stupid.

Stupid Bellatrix, too stupid to get caught with everyone else at the Ministry, so stupid their master had to save her specially.

Stupid cell. Stupid women. Stupid life.

Stupid knuckles, bleeding as he splits them open on stupid stone.

Stupid.


	13. The Dark Lord

**A / N : This . . . . this is another strange one, I'm afraid. It sticks to the theme of imprisonment and insanity, but barely. I would put it in something else, but there isn't anywhere it quite belongs, and it's too short to be really justified as a oneshot. So please, feel free to tell me it doesn't really fit, you find it weird, it seems out of place etc. The reason _this _chapter found its way into my head at all was because porschejacker XD requested, very kindly, that I do a Voldemort chapter from when he was in his bodyless, spirit-type phase. I pretty much discounted the idea, but when I woke up . . . this had wormed its way into my head. I truly do have no control over what emerges when I put pen to paper. (By the way, there's a tiny nod to one of Daring D's fics in here too, though I doubt anyone would notice on their own. It's the word loathe. :P ) **

**Let me have it if this is completely nonsensical, honestly. I'm sort of expecting it. This is rather strange even by my standards. (And anyone who knows me knows that's . . . strange.) Enjoy! **

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**The Dark Lord**

Bella has failed again.

And failure requires punishment, does it not? She know this. She has always known this.

He raises his wand, prepares to bring it down like a whip, to lash her thin and broken frame with red light and watch her shudder and shake, watch her bleed as she fights so hard not to scream. She trained herself not to scream a long time ago.

He knows, of course, that the fiasco at the Ministry was not entirely her fault. But Lord Voldemort is not feeling merciful. He showed mercy enough in saving her, did he not? Mercy she scarcely deserved.

And he is angry. Bella of all people ought to understand anger. She has always been so disinclined to control her own, after all. The thought displeases him, and once again it is easy – too easy – to find the will to repeat the incantation, to torture her again. She does not scream, but the effort is beginning to show in her ragged lips, in the blood streaming down her throat and soaking into her robes. This displeases him even more. Screams are a weakness. Blood is a weakness. Tears are a weakness. And Bella always finds a way to prove her weakness. A way to contradict her own strength, a way to make him loathe her all the more.

He watches as she coughs and splutters, choking on her own blood, and he pauses. It will not do for her to die, after all. That is not his aim. He stands above her, watching her shoulders shake as her hair falls across her face, and he wonders, briefly, which weakness she is expressing now.

He ought to stop.

He knows this, of course. If he does not stop soon, he will kill her. This is an old game. He knows how far he can push Bella, knows how much she can withstand. He knows he is close – perilously close – to breaking her. But he is angry, and today, he does not care enough to be careful. If she dies, so be it. It will be nothing more than final, irredeemable proof of her weakness.

He is close now – so close – to breaking her. He has tortured her for her own foolishness, for Lucius, for Lestrange and Rookwood and every other follower who failed him today. For Potter and his friends, for Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix, and for his own failure, his own arrogance and carelessness . . . . Every surge of anger, every mocking rememberence brings him closer and closer, and he does not realize how close until she ceases to respond at all as the curse strikes her, over and over again. She has closed her eyes and is mumbling under her breath. "Master." Over and over again. A prayer for mercy, or a vain declaration of her loyalty?

He raises his wand, and he waits, considering. Bella. She suffered for him, did she not? She surrendered her sanity. In Azkaban . . .

It takes her an age to become aware of the fact that he is no longer torturing her, an age to summon the strength to open her eyes. She stares up at him, glassy-eyed and ethereal. He laughs - a cold, mirthless laugh. He has shredded her nerves, torn them into splinters as fine as spun glass and with a word, he can break her heart, silence its stuttering song forever.

He watches her, considering. They are a strange pair, he and Bella. Bella relinquished her sanity, surrendered her mind, so that she might live to serve a master she truly believed would return for her. And he . . . he abandoned his body, and fled from death itself. He stole life from snakes and rodents, from the weakest of the weak. He lived – if living it could indeed be called – he _existed – _in a state that was more disgusting than anything he had ever known. The endless, sleepless agony of it, the sheer effort it cost to endure, to anchor his weak and splintered soul in a world of painful reality, a world so solid his ghost-and-vapour form had no place in it. Bella had been imprisoned behind iron bars and cold stone. He, on the other hand, had been too free. Insubstantial. Unable to force his essence into a solid form, weaker than the tiniest insect, the most miserable rodent. A howling wind might have torn him apart, had he not somehow found the strength to hold himself together. And yet he endured. He survived.

Bella distracts him at this moment by falling unconscious.

He bends down beside her, carelessly turning her over. Whether he has killed her or not is at this point uncertain. She certainly bears all the hallmarks of the dead. He watches her, silent and speculating. Yes. They are a strange pair, he and Bella. Her body, abandoned by her mind, and his mind, ripped from his body. He might have used her, then, had he thought to do so.

Why did he not think to do so?

He places one cold finger on the bloody space above her heart, where he can feel nothing but a resounding emptiness, and he waits.

Azkaban, he decides at last. Her body would have been no use to him in Azkaban.

Still nothing. Silence. Emptiness.

He straightens up again. So it ends . . .

And then she coughs, unexpectedly, and her eyelids flicker, signalling a return to consciousness. To the land of the living. Bella, apparently, is more resilient than he had assumed. Azkaban has broken stronger men, and he - Lord Voldemort - most certainly has. And yet . . . . she endures, as he endured. He contemplates this as she awakes, and he smiles. A cold thing. She may have surrendered her sanity, but she has not yet succumbed to death.

Perhaps she is not so weak after all.


	14. Stan Shunpike

**A / N : Stan Shunpike. The young conductor of the Knight Bus, if anyone needs me to refresh their memory. Imprisoned by Rufus Scrimgeour in HBP for allegedly discussing the Death Eaters' secret plans in a pub. I sort of wondered why a person would do that, and so . . . this. I'm trying to branch out and do different things as I go on, which is why we're seeing a variation on the "prisoner in their cell" theme more and more. For example, how someone ended up in Azkaban in the first place, like in this one, or the effects it has on them afterwards, which is how I plan to approach Arthur Weasley's one. (He visited once, apparently.) The last one could also be viewed (in a way) as the effect Bellatrix's incarceration had on her and even on Voldemort. This one was written through a headache (and the last one was edited through insomnia. Will I ever learn?) so please tell me if you spot any little spelling errors and so on. Okay, I'll stop rambling now. Enjoy! **

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**Stan Shunpike **

Stan's last real girlfriend – his _first _real girlfriend, if he's brutally honest – before Azkaban was a girl named Veronica Clarke. Veronica was a Nice Girl. She helped around the house, she never once forgot Mother's Day or her great-aunt's birthday, and she was never, ever, in trouble at school - not so much as a detention in seven years. She got all Acceptables in her NEWTs, which wasn't incredible, but to Stan (who scraped only a handful of Dreadfuls in his) wasn't to be sneezed at either. And she had rules. Kissing was okay, but only after the first official date. He could touch her neck, sometimes, if it was a really good day, and sometimes he could even hook his arms around her waist and pull her up against him. Though never more than that. If Stan overstepped these boundaries, he would find himself on the receiving end of a prolonged and frosty silence. And no-one did frosty silence like Veronica. She made Professor McGonagall look like a novice. She could drag these silences out for _weeks. _The thing about Veronica was that she was a Nice Girl. (Stan-speak for a tease.) She just wasn't a particularly nice girl. In fact, there were times when she could be cold and crushing and downright cruel. And yet, somehow, Stan kept coming back for more, after every cutting put-down and every during every thawing of the long-running Stan-and-Veronica Cold War. He thought it would all be worth it in the end. Thought that maybe, when Veronica said cruel things to him, she really only meant to be funny. Maybe it could be their thing. Couples had that sometimes, didn't they? A "thing".

So he fought harder to try and please her, because he really, really liked her, and he was starting to think it might even be more than that. It might even be love. But how could he tell her that, when every day he came closer and closer to losing her? The trouble was, Stan wasn't a particularly interesting person. He was just someone who'd flunked all his exams and wound up in a dead-end job. (Conductor on the Knight Bus? Come _on. _There was probably no job in London more pathetic than that, as Veronica had kindly informed him one rainy evening when Stan couldn't even scrape together a few Sickles to take her for a drink. He was forced to conclude she might have a point.)

So, in the absence of a truly interesting life, Stan made the fatal mistake of making one up. It began innocently enough. He would show up to take Veronica on a date, and invent a really hectic day at work to keep her interested. A famous person rode the Knight Bus that day. A customer at the Leaky Cauldron had a heart attack. A really pretty girl flirted with Ernie (was she out of her mind?). He would say anything to keep that glazed look at bay, anything to stop Veronica looking at him the way she did sometimes, as though he were the most boring thing on earth, and she would tear her hair out if he didn't do something interesting soon.

The thing about lies though, the thing no-one had ever told poor, hapless Stan, was that they were addictive. One after another and another and another . . . . pretty soon, they had begun to snowball, and worse, Stan was starting to believe them, starting to find it hard to tell the difference between dreams and reality. Particularly when reality was looking grimmer by the day.

By the time Veronica dumped him for once and for all – the last chilling act of the Cold War – he really, truly wasn't sure if she was right or wrong, when she screamed that he was a fantasist, and told him to grow up.

That night, Stan blew a week's wages in the Leaky Cauldron. The next morning, he could remember nothing of the night before. It was a mystery to him when he awoke to find himself in a holding cell in the Ministry of Magic, waiting to be questioned by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. They told him – the new, no-nonsense Minister Scrimgeour and a rather less sure looking Auror by the name of Kingsley Shacklebolt – that he had confessed to being a Death Eater the previous night. At first, he thought they must be joking. As if You-Know-Who would ever recruit _him_. Stan Shunpike, a Death Eater? Veronica would have died laughing.

But they seemed to be serious. Scrimgeour, anyway. Stan opened his mouth, about to set them straight, and then he was struck by a sudden realization. If he confessed, he'd be arrested. And if he was arrested . . . . he'd get his name in the paper. Everyone would be talking about him. He'd be _famous. _And maybe he would finally be interesting enough to keep a girl.

Veronica might even see.

She might take him back.

So he kept his mouth shut.

Later on, stone cold sober and screaming his innocence in Azkaban, Stan realizes that this may not have been his best idea.


	15. Rubeus Hagrid

**A / N : Hagrid, as requested by Jacalyn Hyde and Expecting Rain. Let me know what you think, as always! (This, by the way, is set during Chamber of Secrets, when Lucius Malfoy and Cornelius Fudge show up and Hagrid is taken away to Azkaban.) Enjoy! **

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**Rubeus Hagrid**

He has never been afraid of monsters. After all, they aren't _monsters. _Not really. Not to him. They're just interesting creatures, misunderstood. They can't help their natures. There's nothing to fear from a monster, not if you understand this one basic fact. A beast doesn't know how to suppress its instincts. If you treat an animal with respect, you can have nothing to fear. Because an animal will never attack without reason – there is always a motive, be it hunger or fear or a need to protect its young.

No, creatures Hagrid has never feared. Beasts he has never considered monsters. But _people . . . . _now people are different.

The things that human beings can do to each other . . . they make him shudder. And no matter how hard he tries to understand . . . . he can't.

This where they sent him. To Azkaban, where the wild things are. Up at the top, dizzingly high, where the worst of the worst are kept. Because – whatever Fudge says about precautionary measures – the Ministry believes he set a dangerous creature on the students of Hogwarts. And that is a heinous crime, an inexplicable crime, a _motiveless_ crime. The actions of a true monster.

What is a monster?

He considers this as he sits shivering in his cell. He is usually torn between anguished memories – the day his wand was snapped in two, for instance, or the day his father died. The rest of the time he is drowning in a black sea, and suffocating in the cold, and he doesn't have the time to notice anything else. But sometimes he finds his mind clears a little, and it is then, during these lucid spells, that he considers monsters.

What makes a monster?

Is it venom and bile?

(The poison that runs in a man's veins and makes him rotten to the core. Bad blood . . . )

Is it banshee screams and goblin laughter?

(The crazed exhultations of a woman who glories in evil and delights in despair.)

Is it brute force?

(The sound of fists striking stone and flesh, the desperate attempts made by the frozen to feel.)

Is it hooded, basilisk stares seen through iron bars?

Restless pacing and anguished howls . . .?

Or the sound in the night, like the thin, miserable cry of the augrey? A sound that conveys death and despair, the pitiful lamentation of the hopeless.

He shivers.

There is another monster, of course. One without enough human left in him to die. It's hard to believe that monster was human in the first place.

What makes a monster, he wonders.

And what, for that matter, makes a man?

* * *

**A / N : An augrey, according to the wonderful Harry Potter Lexicon, is an Irish phoenix. It resembles a vulture and flies only during heavy rain. (Frequent flyer, then.) It also has a high cry traditionally regarded as a death omen but now known merely to foretell – you guessed it – more rain. **

**Also, if anyone is a little confused about what I was doing in the middle of this one (all the brackets) it's quite simple – Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, random incarcerated Death Eaters of your choice, and Voldemort. You see? ;) **


	16. Narcissa Malfoy

**A / N : First of all, sorry I haven't updated this in a while. I've been busy and I have to admit, I put this to the back of my list of priorities. But I haven't given up on it by any means. This one . . . . this is another odd one, I suppose, and probably goes to prove that the odder the request, the more likely I am to try it eventually! Narcissa Malfoy, as requsted by Daring D. (In case you can't tell, it's set after Lucius' arrest and imprisonment in OotP. Enjoy, and let me know what you think, as always. **

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**Narcissa Malfoy **

In her dreams, there is nothing but ice, everywhere.

Her home is filled with it, the air freezing in her lungs, and she stumbles on the steps, because they are covered in ice too, clear and deadly – she falls, because she can't see the trap they have set before her very eyes.

Her husband is an ice sculpture, cold and immobile, and he cracks beneath her touch - splinters into a thousand tiny shards and falls apart - and this time, she does not know if she can put him together again.

Draco too is made of ice, and he too is falling apart, but he collapses differently to Lucius. He _melts, _water trickling like tears down clear and glassy cheeks.

Narcissa awakens with a start, to find that her dream is not so much a nightmare as a sharper, colder version of reality. She shivers. Someone somewhere in the house is screaming and for a moment she freezes, her heart pounding in her throat before she relaxes again. The scream is not Draco's. His scream is a sound she would know anywhere, a scar upon her heart that bleeds through into her dreams.

She ought to sleep. She knows this, knows that sitting awake, sick and fearful and numb with loneliness, won't do her any good.

But the dream won't let her sleep, not until she knows.

So she goes to find the one person who can tell her.

It is cold outside, and raining. The water falls in slanting sheets, iron grey and menacing, and it soaks her in an instant. It feels as though it wants to strip her clean, to wash away everything but the cold lodged in her heart.

She picks the loneliest part of the grounds, and the darkest. Sure enough, Bella is sitting there, soaked to the skin, bloodstains dark against her robes. Black on black. Can she even feel the rain? Narcissa doubts it.

Bellatrix's face is stark white, blood beading on her lips. She has been punished, again. Cissy cannot quite bring herself to care. There is something about her sister's devotion that sickens her, now.

"What's it like, Bella?" she asks quietly.

Bella stares at her, a look that is somehow both blank and . . . . . calculating. Narcissa feels her stomach twist. Sometimes, looking at Bella, she feels as if it is not her sister she sees anymore but a stranger. Someone she will never understand.

"What's what like?" Bella replies dully.

"Azkaban."

Bella stares past her, up at the moon. Tonight it is thin as a nail paring and a hard, bright silver, like the blade of a knife.

She shivers.

"Cold," she murmers at last. "It's cold."


	17. Nymphadora Tonks

**A / N : Requested by no-one and written on a whim, this is set, very obviously, during Harry's fifth year, when Bellatrix and co break out of Azkaban. It's dedicated three ways – to xoxLewrahxox, to Expecting Rain, and to Jacalyn Hyde, and you all ought to know why . . . . . . :) **

**The Remus / Tonks stuff here . . . . I've just realized I find Remus and Tonks rather cute, though I disagree with aspects of how their relationship plays out in canon. (Namely, that they both DIE.) And it's about time Azkaban had indirectly _good _effect on a character's life, or I wouldn't be very fair, would I? **

**Reviews are love. Enjoy my random mind. Etc. :D **

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**Nympadora Tonks**

She is in the kitchen of No. 12, Grimmauld Place, when news of the breakout reaches her. She hates this house, though she will never say it unless Sirius says it first. She doesn't want to make him more miserable than he already is – much as she loves Sirius, he's been a lot less fun since Harry went back to school, and this house, that portrait, and _that house elf_ are all topics of conversation which send his mood into an immediate downward spiral. But she hates it. Hates the gloomy rooms and pokey staircases, hates the musty air and . . . . everything about it, really. This place is pure poison, and her body knows it. She can't set foot inside the front door without tripping, she slips on the varnished floorboards and walks into cabinets and . . . . She knows she's clumsy, but she can't help but feel that the house is out to get her, a feeling ranting Great-Aunt-Whatever-She-Is-Walburga does nothing to refute.

It's four'o'clock, and they are talking over tea – just chatting really, her and Sirius, and she thinks – she _thinks – _he's in a good mood, that her tall tales about Mad Eye's paranoia are cheering him up.

She doesn't remember, afterwards, how it all happens. She only sees snatches of the scene – Remus' white face as he holds up the Prophet, and Sirius' rage – the sound that fills the kitchen is one that gives her shivers, that shocks her more than the chair hurled across the flagstones or the inhuman anger on her cousin's face. The sound reminds her that Sirius will never be the person her mother remembers, or the one she gets occasional glimpses of, mostly when he's with Harry. Azkaban took something away from him. Part of him died there.

The person he could have been, maybe.

She doesn't remember leaving. Doesn't remember her trainers slapping against the pavement as she runs, doesn't remember that first, clear lungful of winter air outside. But she remembers why – remembers the reason for her flight.

That face, staring and straining and screaming, as though the woman can scratch through the lense of the camera if she only fights hard enough. _And she has, _her niece realizes with a jolt. _She's free. _Pale, with wild dark eyes and snarling curls – darker and fiercer and utterly, utterly mad, but still . . . .it's her _mother. _Tonks swallows, suddenly and inexplicably sick. Of all the tales her mother told her, all the uncomfortable truths uncovered at her urging . . . somehow, it had never really hit home that this woman, these _people, _came from the same place as her mother, or were anything like her. Her mother, kind and soft and wary, but always understanding. Her mother, who is comfort and love and security, and this woman, this _monster, _who is fear and incomprehension and hopelessness . . . .

How could two people look so alike but be so different inside?

Tonks has spent years playing with her own appearance, but has never stopped to think about what it all means. How?

She shivers. January. The air is sharp, and frost crackles beneath her feet. Her bobbly pink jumper (a Christmas gift from Molly she is wearing today simply for the horrified look her mother had given it) was cozy in the kitchen but seems much too thin out on the street.

She jumps when something warm and heavy settles unexpectedly across her shoulders. A jacket, threadbare and old, but so comforting. A rush of relief sweeps through her. It smells like home, and for a moment – a split second really – she expects to see a parent when she looks up. She feels stupid and naive and in need of comforting.

"I thought you might be cold," Remus says mildly. His voice is hoarse, and he smells like hot lemon and honey. He must have a cold. Nymphadora feels her cheeks burn, wondering why she has noticed this, wondering why it matters, why that husky note in his voice sounds so appealing to her.

"Thanks," she mutters. His jacket smells like lemon too. Does he have lozenges in his pockets or something?

She pushes the thought away and waits for him to break the silence, to say something about her disappearing act, or to comment on the weather, or the breakout. He doesn't. He watches her, as though the intensity of his gaze alone can warm her through and through, but he says nothing.

No-one has ever looked at her like that before. It makes her feel scared and oddly safe, all at the same time.

She shivers again, though she isn't cold anymore, and sits down on the kerb, not caring about the ice soaking her jeans. Remus doesn't seem to care either. He sits beside her, still silent.

"Were you scared?" Dora whispers, staring at her knees. "In the first war, when you realized it was all _real . . ." _A lump is forming in her throat. "When you realized you'd really have to fight, and you might not win . . . ." Another shiver. She has never felt more like someone fresh out of Auror training, has never understood the sheer terror inherent in the phrase '_new blood' _before. "Were you scared?"

There is a long silence. When Remus breaks it, there seems to be more than a cold colouring his voice.

"I'm still scared, Dora" he murmers. "We all are."

And something breaks inside her.

Somehow – later she won't understand that either – but somehow, the world shifts with his words, and when it settles back to rights again, Remus has an arm around her, holding her tight, and she is crying onto his shoulder like a lost little girl, something wholly unchildlike swelling her heart. They are standing, though she does not remember getting up. Her jeans are damp and her cheeks are as pink as her hair, and when she kisses Remus on a sudden, strange whim, it feels half like sanity and half like beautiful, beautiful _insanity. _

It is a moment too good to last, a fairytale played out in the cold with war hovering above the hero's head, but Dora can't quite bring herself to care. She kisses Remus in the cold, and the air crackles with something more than frost.

Below them, her sanity long lost and her screams a silent and too-easily ignored objection, the newspaper-Bellatrix lies crumpled in the snow.


	18. Bartemius Crouch Sr

**A / N : Again, I don't think this was requested by anyone, (correct me if my memory is faulty, I don't mind) but it demanded to be written all the same. Set, obviously, some time after Barty's imprisonment, and before his escape. It was interesting to write . . . to try and take Barty's intense hatred of his father, and Crouch Sr's callous actions at his son's trial, and build reasons for them was . . . interesting. But having written so many Barty oneshots by now, I thought it might be fun to walk in his father's shoes for a bit. It also helps answer some of the questions about why my Barty is so very, er, strange. **

**I should probably have put all the Crouches together, really . . . but I can't control which inspirations hit me when, haha. (Oh, and though he deliberately never refers to him by name at any point, it should be obvious Crouch is talking about Barty Jr here. ) **

**Enjoy! :) **

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**Bartemius Crouch Sr **

It is February, and the snow on the streets outside has turned to slush, but the enchanted windows of the Ministry of Magic still show fluffy falling flakes. His eye is drawn to them, and he wonders, briefly, at the picture perfect image, at the illusion so removed from reality. So near, and yet so far.

He is sitting at his desk, one hand around a cold cup of coffee. The other is toying with a paperweight, moving it from one stack of memos to the next. Across the desk and back again, a pointless march. It fits nowhere.

Like the boy. There is nowhere he can put his son, in his own head, that will give him peace.

Azkaban is not far enough, and the empty house is so near it scalds them all.

The boy is dying, or so they tell him. Aurors, who come to him and share this news in hushed, guilty tones, shuffling their shoes and avoiding eye contact, as though imparting news of the boy is akin to transferring a plague.

A plague. That is all the boy has ever been. Crouch did not want a child, a boy much less. But it kept his wife happy, and he understands he owed her that, for her part in things. A politician without a wife, after all, is a politician vulnerable to lies and scandal, and a family man is much more easily embraced by the public. He still wonders, sometimes, if she knows that their marriage was little more than an arrangement, a _lie. _Sometimes, in her eyes, he sees something that gives him pause, that makes him wonder if she knows it now. Because she is dying too, without the boy . . . She has always seemed to thrive on lies, the boy's lies most of all, but now it is as if she can no longer bring herself to pretend. Crouch knows perfectly well that his son's courtroom dramatics were not intended for him, but for his wife. The boy might be the criminal, but in his mother's eyes, he will always be the victim, a guiltless child. Not that her support helps her son now, Crouch thinks with a snort. The boy is rotting away in Azkaban.

The image is not as enjoyable as expected.

They are all getting their just desserts, he realizes. Every illusion coming undone.

His fingers fumble on the paperweight, and it falls to the floor with a dense, heavy sound, like a planet falling to earth. And then his head is in his hands, and he can hide from himself no longer.

_The boy the boy the boy . . . . . _What has he done?

Crouch does not remember being a child. In flashback, he sees himself merely as a man waiting to happen, and recalls no childish thoughts or naivety. He did not know how to deal with a child, couldn't understand what the boy seemed to want from him. And he always seemed to want _something – _he always had a question, or an answer. What-is-this and why-do-you-do-that and how-can-we-fix-it and look-at-this-isn't-it-fun . . . . Yes. The boy always seemed to want something. He was always where you least expected him to be, hiding under desks and feeding postal owls and racing Ministry memos and generally throwing any attempt at routine into disarray.

Crouch has always been a creature of habit. Every morning, he shaves with the same strokes, in the same order. He aligns his quills on his desk (in order of use) and eats his meals at the same time, applying the same amount of salt and never any pepper, week in, week out. He had expected, somehow, that his life would follow a similar pattern. That there would be structure, and logic, and that the steps he took towards his goals would result, naturally enough, in those goals. But life, he learnt, follows a set of rules he has never fully comprehended – it is a game he does not know how to play.

He remembers the first time it happened. The first time he lost control, the first time his fingers slipped. He had worked for months for a promotion, only to lose it at the eleventh hour to someone young and handsome and underqualified, someone whose unpredictabilty and charismatic smile were no advantage Crouch could see. He was angry, and embittered, and the boy was . . . there. That was all. He was there, where he wasn't supposed to be, sitting on his father's desk and making a paperweight march like a toy Hippogriff across the polished wood. Playing a game. Crouch knows many things about that day, but most he will not allow himself to remember. He remembers shouting at the boy, remembers his shock when the child did not cry, and his anger when he laughed instead, as though his father's red face was somehow amusing. It was a mark of disrespect at the wrong time, and Crouch did know, later, how wrong his response had been. He tried to fix it. He thought if he could only remove the boy's memory of the event, and all proof it happened, the child would resume his never-ending questions and babbling, irritating, childish laughter. If he could make it so it never happened, Crouch reasoned, then what could possibly be the harm? It was a stressful time, he tells himself. He cannot be entirely at fault for slipping once, twice, thrice . . . they were mistakes. Mistakes he fixed. How could the child possibly be unhappy about events he could not recall?

But he was. Crouch watched, from a distance, as his son began to fight a spell he was much too young to understand. _He was trying to remember. _But Memory Charms were something Crouch Sr had always felt confident about – they were strong, and so the boy's struggles did not matter. Let him fight. He would not remember. It took him longer than it ought to have to understand that in the absence of anything tangible to fight, the boy was attacking what his young mind saw as the problem - _himself_. He watched, appalled, as his son attempted to systematically destroy himself, for reasons the boy could not even explain when questioned.

His wife, naturally, looked to him for assistance, begged him to help the child. But what could he do? Even then, Crouch did not believe the truth would set him free. So he lied. Told her he could see nothing wrong with the boy, and hoped the problem would go away. Over the years he tried distance, and discipline, but he was as surprised as anyone when these methods eventually began to have the desired effect.

It is only now of course, years and years later, that he fully understands. The boy did not stop torturing himself because he grew out of it – he simply realized there was more sport to be had in torturing others.

Crouch swallows, physically ill.

_The boy the boy the boy . . . _

The boy is a demon of his own creation, a thing he loathes with all his being and yearns to forget . . . . but forgetting is impossible, now. They are tied together, until one of them breaks.

Why can't he let the boy die?

The answer is a whisper in the dark. It keeps him awake at night, turns food to ash upon his tongue and gnaws at his insides, pulling his mind away from files and facts. It is guilt.

_Murder, _it whispers in the night_. Murder too?_

He can sleep at his desk, to hide from his wife's tears, and he can send the boy far away, but _the boy still wins. _

There is coffee soaking into his socks, and a dent in the floorboards, and the world is wrong. All wrong. And so he knows, even before he raises his head, what he is going to do.

"Forgive me," he whispers, though whether he is appealing to his absent, dying wife, or to the world, he does not know.

Perhaps he is asking forgiveness of himself. Or perhaps . . . _perhaps . . . _he is asking forgiveness of the child.


	19. Andromeda Tonks

**A / N : Okay, so I intended to work on my Tangled update today, but someone made it her mission to distract me all day, and as I was walking home in the rain, this struck me and I had to write it down. Remember how I can't control which inspirations strike me when? Yep . . . **

**Anyway. My apologies about the length, I'm almost sure this is the longest chapter out of all of these, and it's not a recurrent thing, don't worry, but every time I tried to cut more out, I honestly felt it lost something . . . . I would have posted it seperately, but it was written for this and it was so concerned with the Azkaban theme . . .. . Let me know what you think, as always. I've never written Andromeda POV before, but I think I must write way too much Bella and Cissy because this was very nearly titled Andromeda Black. Also, in my stories I have Andromeda as three years older than Bellatrix. It's not important here, but if it shows at all, or aspects of their relationship seem unusual, that's why. ****Enjoy!**

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Andromeda Tonks 

It rained every time something happened to rock the foundations of Andromeda's little world.

It rained the day her Uncle Sebastian was taken to Azkaban for "making sport of Muggles", and Bella came running to her sisters in the garden to share the fruits of her eavesdropping – information about the nature of Dementors, creatures she had taken a childish yet rather morbid interest in. The girls sat huddled together, hair plastered to their foreheads and pretty summer dresses stuck to their skin, but not one of them felt the rain before long.

"They suck out souls?" Cissy wailed. "But . . . but how?"

Bella grinned, ignoring Andromeda's warning look, and dived at their baby sister. "They grab you like _this!" _she cried, scooping the blonde girl into her arms and poking her in the stomach, laughing as Cissy screamed in shock. "And then they crack open your chest and tear out your heart and _squeeze it," _she continued, her eyes sparkling. "And the soul pours out like a waterfall, and it's so bright it blinds everyone who sees it, and that's why Dementors have no eyes . . ."

Andromeda rolled her eyes. She was almost sure this tale had been significantly embellished by Bella, who had a habit of doing that when things got a little too boring for her taste. She watched, exasperated, as Bella chased Cissy around the garden, groaning like a tormented ghoul and making windmilling motions with her arms, in a truly terrible impersonation of a Dementor. The story was probably a lie, Andromeda reflected. But something about it had caught her attention all the same. She stared up at the sky, at the falling rain, and touched a hand to her heart. Was that really where the soul lived? She pictured it as warm bright kernel made of shining mist, cocooned securely in her chest.

What would happen to a person, she wondered, without it?

* * *

It rained on the first day of September, the beginning of her fifth year at Hogwarts. Platform Nine and Three Quarters was crammed with bedraggled parents kissing their darlings goodbye, with cats hissing and owls hooting in the rain, and with girls gasping at what the water was doing to their hair. Bella was further down the platform, laughing at Lucius Malfoy, a boy in her year wearing robes which were horrendous even by Andromeda's more merciful standards. Little Cissy was sitting on Bella's abandoned trunk, watching the verbal sparring between the pair with a wide-eyed, horrified expression. Malfoy's father was, as usual, nowhere to be seen, and Bella seemed to have given their mother the slip somehow, and taken Cissy with her. Andromeda laughed and went to board the train. She didn't realize the carriage steps were slippery until it was too late.

She was about to fall onto the tracks when a hand shot out and seized her own, saving her. She looked up.

It was Ted Tonks, a Hufflepuff in her year. She knew him by sight but had never spoken to him. He had changed over the summer, or perhaps she had never really looked at him before. His face had lost its baby roundness, and his hair was longer, and messier. But still. He was a Hufflepuff, and worse, a _Mudblood. _She ought to push his hand away as though his touch burned, and demand to know who he thought he was, what right he thought he had to touch her. But the words wouldn't come. Andromeda stared at him in open-mouthed silence. The rain, smoke-smelling like the train, fell down upon her as she stood there, half in and half out of the train, her hand still wedged in his. The warm water soaked her robes and made her hair frizz alarmingly, but it didn't cool her burning cheeks. She ought to say something, she knew, but her chance had slipped away too soon – in one swift, effortless movement, Ted pulled her onto the train and dropped her hand.

"You're welcome," he said bitterly, and he walked away.

* * *

It rained that June too, on the last day of school, the day he doomed her. She had been packing when the weather changed, and had really only stepped out of the castle for some air. She was confused, and conflicted, and beginning to wonder if she had spent the whole year under a Confundus Charm. To have befriended a Muggle-born was a shameful enough secret, but to wish she could dig her heels into the Hogwarts lawn and will the summer away, so that she could see him again . . . . that was the sort of secret people got blasted off tapestries for. When Ted appeared unexpectedly, the way he always did, Andromeda was soaked with summer rain and feeling furious. Who did he think he was, to make her feel like this? To make her question everything and throw her deepest desires into disarray?

"Go away," she spat, with as much venom as she could muster. "I don't want to talk to you! Do you understand? I've _never _wanted to talk to you!" Ted said nothing, and his silence was worse than a thousand words. It made her feel sick and cruel, a _liar. _Before she really understood why, she was screaming at him. "You're just a stupid Hufflepuff, a stupid Mudblood Hufflepuff and you don't know _anything _about me, or what my life is like, or what I want, or what I could be if I was only brave enough! I don't want you and I don't need you and I haven't listened to a word you've said, all year, because _I don't care! _I don't care about you, and I don't care about us being friends, and I wouldn't care if you – if you-" She wanted to say 'I wouldn't care if you died', but it was a step too far, a lie her throat would rather close up completely than allow her to tell. She stopped, realizing abruptly that she sounded completely deranged. This outburst was not her, it was Bella, or her father, or someone equally blinkered and belligerant, someone she had once promised Ted she would never be.

He stared at her, watching her catch her breath and fight the tears she could feel building behind her eyes.

"Is that it?" he asked quietly. "Is that everything? The worst you can say to me?"

Andromeda nodded. _I don't mean it, _she wanted to shout. _It's all lies, Ted, I'm so sorry . . . I'm a cow and a snob and you deserve better. _But she couldn't say those words, because they seemed, somehow, more frightening than the lies. "Yes," she whispered instead, frozen with something that was almost fear and not quite excitement as Ted moved closer.

"Good," he said. He seemed calm but his eyes were burning. "Then there's nothing you can say to hurt me when I do _this." _

He pulled her towards him and ran a hand over her cheek, with a hard, triumphant smile. "You're stubborn," he said fiercely, "and a liar, and you push away a helping hand every time I put one out. You'd rather be miserable and wrong than put out a white flag and see what it's like to be happy and right, and for that, I think you're mad." He tightened his hold on her when she twitched, as shocked as if she'd just been slapped. "I also think," he continued loudly, "that you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I think that when you stop trying to be who you think your family wants you to be, you're the best listener I've ever known. And I think I'm in love with you."

Andromeda was still staring at him when he turned her world upside down with a kiss, and she understood that she was doomed.

* * *

It rained the day of the wedding. "Come with me then!" she'd screamed. "If blood is so important to you, don't let me leave!" It hadn't worked. Had she really believed it would?

She stood outside, in the pouring rain, unable to decide what she felt. Liberated, or cast out? She hardly heard Ted approach.

"We did it," she said, numb. "We really did it. We eloped."

Eloped. It sounded like something from a love story, but love stories didn't end this way. Love stories didn't end in rejection and rain and crippling uncertainty. Not even Ted's ridiculously implausible Muggle fairytales ended with a teenage girl crying in the summer rain.

Ted nodded. "I know we did," he said softly. Apparently he could hear something in her voice she herself had missed, because he reached for her and as he touched her, the illusion shattered, the shield the rain had given her collapsed, and she began to cry. Her almost-husband held her as she cried, and though he said nothing, she imagined the beating of his heart against her cheek was drumming out the answers to questions she was too terrified to ask. _It'll be alright. We'll always feel this way about each other. They still love you. They'll forgive you. You're doing the right thing. _

* * *

It rained the day they took Bella away. Andromeda hadn't seen her sister in years, at that point, but she walked through Muggle London in the rain, to give herself a chance to think, and ended up walking right into the Ministry, coming to a halt outside the lift. Somewhere deep in the bowels of this place, Bellatrix was being sentenced to a fate Andromeda wasn't sure she'd wish on her worst enemy. Azkaban. She waited by the lift, her finger inches from the button, and then she swallowed hard . . . . and walked away from Bella again.

* * *

The newspaper in her hands is soaked through, the ink running and the paper a soggy mess. The headline, about the escape of ten high-security prisoners from Azkaban, is two days old and illegible now. Andromeda knew – she _knew – _this would happen, but it wasn't until the rain began that she realized the moment she'd been subconsciously waiting for was here already.

It is really raining now, a downpour that puts every other to shame. The sky is black and the water drives down into the earth like something solid, a violent assault. There are splinters of ice mixed in with the raindrops, and a thunderclap masks the sound of her sister's apparition, but it doesn't matter. Andromeda doesn't need to hear her to know that she is here.

Illuminated by the stark glare of a lightning flash, Bella's face seems wilder, harsher . . . . hollowed-out and desperate. Still beautiful, in a stark, savage way . . . . She looks almost lonely, and Andromeda wonders briefly if she is. She raises her chin and looks her sister in the eye, shivering at the emptiness behind Bella's dark irises.

"Have you come to kill me?" she asks.

She expects her sister to flinch at the stark accusation. Bella merely blinks, and says nothing.

They stare at each other. Azkaban. It hangs between them, an unspoken word among so many others. The place has clearly not left her sister yet – an invisible, draining aura seems to cling to Bella like a cloak, unseen but not unfelt, and Andromeda suddenly recalls her sister's childish conviction, that Dementors could squeeze a person's soul out from their heart. _Whoever coined the phrase 'follow your heart', _she thinks bitterly, _was a traitor or a fool. _

Bella appears to be thinking something similar. She touches a hand briefly to her heart, and for a moment – just a moment – there is pain beyond all description on her face. Andromeda feels a sudden jolt, something so powerful and breath-taking that for a second she believes she has been struck by lightning. Possessed by this sudden, strange feeling, she takes a daring step forward and lets her hand curl around her sister's, holding it in place.

"I didn't make it hurt," she whispers. "I didn't do this, Bella, I know I didn't do all this. But you have to listen to me, you have to let me try and fix it."

Bella's expression, as she feared, immediately hardens. "It's too late," she says harshly.

Andromeda tightens her hold. "It's never too late," she says softly. "We were sisters, Bella. We could be again. I could love you again, if you let me."

Love. It is the wrong word to use. Disgust flashes across Bellatrix's face, and she takes a step back, breaking free.

"It's too late," she repeats, and she laughs, the laugh of the truly insane. "I can't be saved. I'm _damned," _she declares, and she sounds almost pleased about it.

Andromeda shivers. The question emerges before she can stop it. "What did you do, Bella? What happened to my sister?"

Bella turns her face to the sky and opens her mouth. When she opens her eyes again and closes her mouth, Andromeda almost swears she hears ice crunch between her teeth.

"I went to him," she murmers. "I went to him when I was so young, and so ignorant . . . . and he showed me everything. The world is rotten, so rotten, and he told me how to clean it . . . I think I wanted to," she muses, "at first. I don't remember. But now I _need _to. I need for him to need me, don't you see?"

Andromeda shakes her head. "No."

Bella laughs again, and kicks a clump of mud. "No," she says contemplating. "You wouldn't." Lightening flashes again, and Bella laughs in tandem with the accompanying thunder-roll. "You left me," she declares with a giggle, "so I'll leave you. But I have to be fair, you understand?"

Andromeda suppresses a scowl. "No," she snaps. "I don't understand. Stop talking in riddles, Bella."

Bella pulls out her wand and twirls it between her fingers, balancing it. She smiles, and touches a hand to her sister's cheek.

"I think you ruined everything around me," she says seriously, "when you left. So I think it's only fair that I ruin everything around you." The caress turns into a slap, without warning, and she pulls back, her eyes sparkling. "Better run, sister," she hisses. The lightning strikes in triplicate, and Bella screams the last part of the sentence above the sound. _"Better run, better hide!"_

The third strike blinds Andromeda, and when she looks up her sister has gone, and her words are ringing in her ears.

_Better run, better hide. Better run, better hide. _


End file.
